13 NOV 2009
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*US Air jet diverted after landing gear glitch
*Delta suspends pilot held in Georgia plane incident
*Airlines Fight for Safety-Upgrade Funds
*Enhancing Air Safety in Indonesia
*Canadair CL-600-2B19 Accident (Rwanda)
*BBC Intends To Intentionally Crash Jet For Documentary
*SCSI - HUMAN FACTORS IN AVIATION MAINTENANCE (HFAM) Course
*Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Alumni chapter - Middle East Meeting:
*New version of Boeing 747 jumbo jet emerges from factory
****************************************
US Air jet diverted after landing gear glitch
DAYTON, Ohio - A US Airways plane en route to Indianapolis was diverted to
Dayton International Airport after the crew reported a problem with the
landing gear.
Airline spokesman Todd Lehmacher says the Canadair Regional Jet landed
safely at about 6 p.m. Thursday. Lehmacher says US Airways Express Flight
2582 was canceled and the passengers were transported by bus to
Indianapolis.
Lehmacher says a crew at the airport's maintenance facility is checking the
airplane to see what caused a "gear disagree" light to flash, prompting the
precautionary landing.
Lehmacher says the Canadair Regional Jet took off from Charlotte, N.C. at
about 4:10 p.m. The plane is owned by PSA, a wholly-owned subsidary of US
Airways.
He says a maintenance crew is still examining the aircraft.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-oh-planediverted,0,6215766.story
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Delta suspends pilot held in Georgia plane incident
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Delta Air Lines Inc said on Thursday it has suspended a
pilot who was charged with attempting to run down police officers with his
private plane at a metro-Atlanta airport.
Dan Gryder, the pilot, is being held in Spalding County Jail in Griffin,
Georgia, charged with aggravated assault and obstruction, according to a
statement from the Griffin Police Department.
Two code enforcement officers attempted to issue six citations to Gryder on
Wednesday at the Griffin-Spalding Airport, the statement said. Gryder
refused to sign the tickets, boarded his 1937 DC-3A plane, and started it
up, police said. Gryder almost struck one officer's vehicle with the plane,
the statement added.
Gryder eventually shut down the plane after his request for a fuel truck was
denied, and was taken into custody.
"He essentially shut the airport down for almost 45 minutes," Griffin police
investigator Bryan Clanton said in the statement.
Delta spokesman Anthony Black said in an email on Thursday that Gryder is a
Delta pilot and has been suspended pending the completion of the
investigation.
Last month, Delta suspended two Northwest Airlines pilots who overflew their
destination and lost contact with air controllers during an October 21
flight from San Diego to Minneapolis. The pair told aviation officials they
were discussing company policy and using their laptops.
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Airlines Fight for Safety-Upgrade Funds
The Obama Administration appears split over whether to provide billions of
dollars in federal assistance to outfit aircraft with the latest air-traffic
control equipment.
The new equipment is part of a broader upgrade of the nation's air-traffic
control system called NextGen and would create a primarily satellite-based
system designed to allow planes to fly closer together and guide them on
more direct routes, leading to fuel cost savings for airlines, shorter
flight times for passengers and lower environmental impact. The government
already plans to invest roughly $20 billion in the new system's backbone.
However, the airline industry -- which has racked up more than $30 billion
of losses in the past three years -- is eager for the federal government to
help it offset most of the cost of installing the equipment in airplanes.
The industry argues that it can't afford the upgrade in today's economic
environment.
Senior White House economic aide Lawrence Summers and a broad industry
coalition, including equipment makers, business-aviation groups and
representatives of private pilots, are pushing for speedy government
assistance. The group is supported by some high-ranking federal
transportation appointees, according to officials familiar with the issue.
Proponents argue that such aid -- perhaps totaling more than $10 billion
over five years -- would produce many times greater benefits, including
industrywide fuel savings that some projections peg at roughly $2 billion
annually.
But President Barack Obama's budget office seems reluctant to embrace any
deal that would add to the federal deficit. In recent months, White House
aides have privately balked at various proposals to use tax breaks or direct
subsidies to help airlines pay for equipment. Indeed, previous Obama budget
blueprints included imposing a new "direct user fee" on aircraft intended to
funnel some $7 billion annually to airport projects.
The issue of air-traffic modernization was highlighted Thursday, when
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood convened an industry-government summit
in Washington to discuss ways to help the U.S. aviation industry become more
competitive. After a day of closed-door meetings, Mr. LaHood announced the
formation of a blue-ribbon study group to tackle the most pressing problems.
While that task force won't specifically look at funding for NextGen, Mr.
LaHood talked about the importance of air-traffic modernization and
disclosed that he has already broached the subject with Mr. Summers, who
heads the White House's National Economic Council. "We'll see where all
these discussions take us," Mr. LaHood said.
With airlines facing a multitude of environmental, antitrust and
technological challenges, the White House and the Department of
Transportation want to show they are responsive to both company and union
concerns.
NextGen proponents, who want to start phasing in big parts of the proposed
system in the next few years, argue speedier deployment also would reduce
the Federal Aviation Administration's spending to maintain its aging system
of ground-based radars. And rapid deployment could end up creating as many
new high-tech jobs, according to industry estimates.
FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt told reporters Thursday that the air-traffic
upgrade "is not optional, we've got to have it." The agency is now mulling
ways to do a partial roll out of the system that would be deployed on some
new routes, landing approaches and procedures around certain busy regions
and airports. By delaying a truly nationwide rollout, benefits would come
sooner and airlines willing to make early investments could focus their
efforts on the same regions.
At this point, Congressional leaders seem to be waiting for clear signals
from President Obama before wading into the controversial area of how to pay
for modernizing air-traffic services. In past years, conflicts between
airlines and groups representing private pilots doomed FAA and White House
funding proposals.
For the first time, more than a dozen industry associations and trade groups
have banded together to demand federal aid to implement NextGen. They want
the U.S. to treat installation of onboard equipment -- which can cost up to
$200,000 for a jumbo jet -- as though it were part of the government's own
air-traffic control system. For its portion of the plan, the FAA is
currently budgeting about $870 million annually.
Marion Blakey, a former FAA chief who heads the Aerospace Industries
Association, said in September that she believes NextGen will provide
"transformative change" to the industry. Because there is such a broad
coalition backing the new system, she thinks it could be financed and rolled
out before 2015. "We have a terrific window of opportunity here, and we
shouldn't squander it," she said.
Before Thursday's session, Doug Parker, chairman and chief executive of US
Airways, released a letter urging Mr. LaHood to help airlines buy the
necessary equipment. If such cost "has to be covered by even higher taxes or
fees imposed on the airlines," the letter said, "we prefer to live without
[NextGen] at the current time."
The debate comes months after aviation industry officials failed to have
air-traffic control issues included in sweeping federal economic-stimulus
legislation. Since then, the industry coalition has sent letters to Capitol
Hill, talked with Mr. Summers and enlisted the support of the FAA. It has
argued that such assistance would produce tangible, near-term efficiency and
safety benefits, long before the FAA's tentative 2018 deadline for
widespread deployment. "I have never seen an [industry] effort that has been
this unified," according to Roger Cohen, head of the association
representing commuter airlines. A White House spokesman wasn't immediately
available for comment.
The funding debate also has sparked some new ideas about controlling
airspace. Neil Planzer, a Boeing Co. official who testified on behalf of the
Aerospace Industries Association, told a House transportation subcommittee
last month that he favored replacing current "first come, first served"
principles of air-traffic control services. Instead, Mr. Planzer said he
supported relying on a "best-equipped, best-served" concept, partly as a way
to help boost industry confidence in NextGen. David Traynham, another Boeing
official, told an FAA safety conference in September: "We need to broaden
our thinking about what constitutes" air-traffic control systems. "A lot of
the [future] infrastructure," he said, "is going to be equipment in
cockpits."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125807147909646329.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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Enhancing Air Safety in Indonesia
All Weather, Inc. (AWI) is providing an undisclosed number of Automated
Weather Observing Systems (AWOS) and Runway Visual Range Systems (RVR) to
numerous airports throughout Indonesia. The AWOS, developed by AWI, is an
unmanned system that provides up-to-the-minute weather data to airport
personnel, pilots, and meteorological offices. The RVR system, developed by
AWI provides accurate and reliable RVR values aiding in safer take offs and
touchdowns. "These systems will provide around-the-clock weather and RVR
data to locations that, until now, have had limited or no access to such
information," said Steve Glander, international sales manager of AWI
Included in AWI's AWOS offering are sensors for measuring wind speed and
direction, temperature, humidity, rainfall, and barometric pressure, the
Indonesian airports will also be outfitted with AWI's Laser Ceilometer and
Dual-Technology Visibility/RVR Sensor. Laser ceilometers use laser pulses
and sophisticated software algorithms to "see" cloud cover, enabling them to
determine the height and depth of up to four layers of clouds above an
airport. A series of Dual-Technology Visibility Sensors installed alongside
the airport's runway work in concert with AWI's Ambient Light Sensor to
determine Runway Visual Range (RVR), a highly accurate measure of visibility
from a pilot's perspective.
http://www.aviationtoday.com/asw/topstories/Enhancing-Air-Safety-in-Indonesi
a_36599.html
****************
Canadair CL-600-2B19 Accident (Rwanda)
Date: 12 NOV 2009
Time: ca 12:30
Type: Canadair CL-600-2B19 Regional Jet CRJ-100ER
Operating for: Rwandair Express
Leased from: JetLink Express
Registration: 5Y-JLD
C/n / msn: 7197
First flight: 1997
Engines: 2 General Electric CF34-3A1
Crew: Fatalities: 0 / Occupants: 3
Passengers: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 10
Total: Fatalities: 1 / Occupants: 13
Airplane damage: Substantial
Location: Kigali Airport (KGL) (Rwanda)
Phase: Taxi (TXI)
Nature: International Scheduled Passenger
Departure airport: Kigali Airport (KGL/HRYR), Rwanda
Destination airport: Entebbe Airport (EBB/HUEN), Uganda
Narrative:
A Canadair CRJ-100ER RegionalJet passenger plane, 5Y-JLD, operating for
Rwandair Express, was substantially damaged when it struck an airport
building at Kigali Airport (KGL), Rwanda. One passenger was killed. The
airplane operated on a scheduled international flight to Entebbe Airport
(EBB), Uganda.
Two minutes after take-off, the pilot requested to return because of
unspecified technical problems. The airplane landed safely and taxied back
to the apron.
However, when the plane reached it's parking spot in fron of the VIP lounge,
the pilot reported that the engines had failed to stop and were running at "
100 percent power" according to the Rwandair Chief Operating Officer.
The airplane moved forward, knocking over blast fences until it smashed
through the concrete wall of the airport building. The nose gear collapsed
and the nose was burried inside the building up to and including the forward
passenger doors.
Weather reported about the time of the accident (12:30 local, 10:30 UTC):
HRYR 121030Z VRB03KT 9999 BKN030 24/18 Q1018 NOSIG= [Wind variable at 3
knots; unlimited visibility; Broken clouds at 3000 feet; temperature 24
degrees C, dew point 18 degrees C; 1018 MB]
(aviation-safety.net)
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BBC Intends To Intentionally Crash Jet For Documentary
Pilots Will Parachute From The Aircraft Filled With Cameras And Equipment
The BBC says it will intentionally crash an airplane in the desert for a
documentary called "Plane Crash", which it says will air on its Channel 4
sometime in 2010.
The date and location of the filming are being kept under wraps, and it is
only reported that the aircraft will be a "300 seat airliner," according to
the newspaper "The Guardian."
There will be pilots aboard the plane for the first portion of the flight,
but they will parachute from the aircraft after setting the autopilot to
ensure a crash. The documentary producers say they will fill the aircraft
with crash test dummies, simulated luggage, sensors, and cameras to record
the impact. They say it will provide "invaluable information" about how an
airplane reacts when it impacts the ground at a high rate of speed.
Channel 4 also hopes the crash footage will draw a large audience.
The Documentary producers say that the footage will give safety researchers
"unprecedented insight" into how seatbelts and other safety equipment react
in a crash, as well as what happens with things like luggage in overhead
compartments and other items in the cabin. Producer Geoff Deehan, of
independent production company Dragonfly, said "It will give us
unprecedented answers to the big question: how can we make air crashes more
survivable?"
He also said it will make "specatcular television."
FMI: www.bbc.co.uk
aero-news.net
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SCSI Southern California Safety Institute
*HUMAN FACTORS IN AVIATION MAINTENANCE (HFAM) *
17-19 November 2009 and again 13-15 April 2010 Doubletree Hotel in the
Cabrillo Marina, San Pedro, California
Tuition: $1805, please check website as discounts may apply To register,
contact Sharon Morphew, registrar, at:
sharon.morphew@scsi-inc.com, or at 800-545-3766 www.scsi-inc.com
Modeled After the HFAM Course SCSI Developed for the FAA
Space is still available in SCSI's upcoming November HFAM (Human Factors in
Aviation Maintenance) course. This is the first open enrollment offering of
this course, which is modeled after the HFAM course developed and taught by
SCSI to the FAA's Aviation Safety Ispectors.
The second offering will be in April 2010. Lead instructor is Rick
Anglemyer, Director of Human Factors Programs at SCSI. More information is
available on the website at www.scsi-inc.com.
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Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Alumni chapter in the Middle East
Meeting:
During the Dubai Airshow, more precisely on November 19th 2009, at the
Sheraton Dubai Creek Hotel, there will be a reunion for Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University graduates (Alumni) in the Middle East Chapter. The
event will host some prominent figures in Aviation and Aerospace like Dr.
John Johnson, President of Embry-Riddle. In addition, awards will be
distributed to several high performers in the region.
Here's the official link for the event:
http://www.eraualumni.org/s/867/index.aspx?sid=867&gid=1&pgid=896&crid=0&cal
pgid=277&calcid=813
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New version of Boeing 747 jumbo jet emerges from factory
Boeing rolled out the first 747-8 - the largest version of its iconic jumbo
jet - from its Everett factory to the nearby paint hangar as a prelude to
weeks of final testing.
The Boeing 747-8, the newest and largest version of the 747 line, was rolled
out Thursday in Everett.
At 5 p.m. today in Everett, Boeing rolled out the newest, largest version of
its iconic jumbo jet, the first 747-8. Tugs moved the 250-foot-long cargo
plane across the 526 freeway overpass and into the paint hangar on the edge
of Paine Field.
The 747-8 program, which has an order book of just 105 jets, ran into
serious delays, the latest of which last month added a $1 billion charge to
third-quarter earnings.
After painting, the jet will undergo a weeks-long series of tests on the
ground. It is expected to fly shortly after the New Year, about one year
late.
Boeing said the first delivery to Luxembourg-based Cargolux remains set for
the fourth quarter of 2010.
Program chief Mohammad "Mo" Yahyavi said today that inside the factory 10
days ago, the first 747-8 completed a series of tests that simulated flight.
Once out on the Paine Field flight line, the plane will repeat those
functional system tests with the engines running.
Then the pilots will do a series of taxi tests leading up to first flight.
With the 787 Dreamliner now expected to fly before Christmas, Boeing is
looking to the 747-8 first flight for an early New Year bonus.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2010264284_webboein
gjumbo12.html
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Curt Lewis, P.E., CSP
CURT LEWIS & ASSOCIATES, LLC